1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to data processing systems and in particular to a partitioned hard drive of a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a hard drive partitioning scheme that dynamically accommodates application growth in size.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many businesses are capitalizing on the marketing potential of the quickly expanding Internet by providing web sites that are accessible to users on the Internet. Most of these businesses, however, do not have the funding, expertise, or desire to purchase required hard ware and software and to set-up and maintain these web sites. These businesses typically turn to companies, such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that provide hosting capabilities along with the required technical expertise and equipment to host the business"" applications.
Web hosting, as the process is called, typically utilizes a server or group of servers (commonly referred to within the industry as a server farm), which host software applications that provide the particular service of the server owner or business. Most businesses utilize the ISP to provide and support their specific Internet applications on a server, which is owned by the ISP. The applications are typically stored on a CD-ROM and manually installed on the server by ISP personnel.
FIG. 2 illustrates a server farm connected to the Internet. Server farm 201 comprises three servers, each hosting a business application (or appliance). Server farm is connected to Internet 203. Also connected to Internet 203 is client system 205, which may be utilized to access the Internet 203 and browse or interact with the application hosted by one or more of the servers in server farm 201.
ISPs typically provide a separate server or group of servers for each business application being hosted. Multiple servers (or server groups) with different applications are controlled by an ISP and make up the sever farm which is xe2x80x9cpluggedxe2x80x9d into the Internet. Each server, including its affiliated software and applications, are extremely costly to acquire, and thus, ISPs seek to provide efficient utilization of the limited number of available servers.
Internet dynamics and user demands often requires an ISP to provide access to different applications and purposes from among a number of possible applications and purposes at scheduled times or on user-demand. The traditional way to handle this requirement is to laboriously install more servers on the racks with the desired application(s) and then configure the servers to meet the demand or to switch out one of the servers with another server that has the desired application loaded on it (see arrow path 207 and 209 of FIG. 2). This proves to be rather costly and time consuming.
Appliance servers are standard severs that operate a specific application via a specific operating system (OS), (i.e., single-focused servers or server groups), and are typically installed for one purpose at an ISP/ASP server farm. Occasionally, an application running on a particular server is desired to be (temporarily) replaced by another application. This may be due to a need to run the other application when all available servers are already being utilized (i.e., there are less available servers than the number of applications desired to be hosted). Whenever the application being run on the appliance server is no longer desired or is being replaced, the ISP personnel has to manually remove the server from the rack (or shelf), un-install the current application, install the next application, and re-configure and re-boot the server before placing the server back on the shelf. The steps of manually changing or installing an appliance server results in significant time loss and may also result in the appliance sever being temporarily unavailable to users desiring to connect to the server.
Occasionally, some ISPs maintain a bank of small personal computer (PC) servers. If the capacity of the server farm is exceeded, the provider adds an additional PC server at minimal expense compared to purchasing a high end server. Thus, hardware scalability is fairly easy to manage compared to the high end server systems. However, like the high end server systems, software scalability is not easily accomplished. In order to update the software in the server farm, each system to be updated must be taken offline, reformatted, re-partitioned, and then loaded manually. This is laborious and very time consuming. In addition, the existing OS""s are stuck with working with a physical hard drive that contains a maximum of four in-flexible partitions due to compatibility and the present PC operating system""s configuration. With a manual re-provisioning process, if the new application size exceeds the pre-allocated hard disk partition or space allocated for re-provisioning, the re-provisioning process cannot be completed and a new server is required.
The present invention recognizes that it would be desirable to have a method and system for automatically re-provisioning/re-purposing an appliance server to provide a different application and/or appliance. A method and system that automatically reconfigures a server with a new or different application and that provides a dynamic hard disk partition scheme that allows the dynamic adjusting of the partition size of a hard disk during a re-provisioning/re-purposing process to accommodate the variable sizes of new applications. These and other benefits are provided by the present invention.
Disclosed is a method for automatically re-provisioning an appliance server without significant user-interaction. The disk drive of a server to be utilized as an appliance server is partitioned into at least three partitions, including a system partition, a network operating system (NOS) partition, and an images partition. A re-provisioning utility is provided, which, when activated by a user, removes a first application (appliance) from the NOS partition of the server and forwards it to a storage location on the network or in a storage partition of the local disk. The re-provisioning utility further installs a second application on the server from the images partition. The system is automatically re-booted and re-configured to provide full operation of the second application.
The system partition contains the system""s operating system. The images partition contains an image file of the second application, which may comprise the application code and associated operating system, etc. (e.g., the network operating system (NOS) for normal operation of the server during web-hosting). The first application may be removed along with its associated operating system. The re-provisioning utility wraps/packages the first application along with its associated files and operating system into a single image file, which is then compressed and forwarded to a storage location. The image file thus comprises the application program(s) and the systems ID, IP address, etc. Additionally, each appliance is provided with a unique ID to allow independent utilization of the appliance across multiple server systems. The storage location may be the images partition or a networked location that is accessible via file transfer protocol (ftp).
The second application may be stored on images partition during initial configuration of the server or later received from a networked site via ftp. The second application is then automatically installed over the current operating system or with another associated operating system. To install the image file, the file is first uncompressed and unpackaged and then an install executable is initiated by the re-provisioning utility. The second application is thus automatically installed on the NOS partition.
In one preferred embodiment, prior to the re-provisioning operations (i.e., create image, apply image, etc.), the re-provisioning utility combines the system""s parameters, i.e., system ID, IP address, etc., in a file that is stored in the images partition that may be accessed later to re-activate the system""s network functions. After re-provisioning, the system parameters are restored or (xe2x80x9cre-installedxe2x80x9d) to provide similar operational and connection features to the original settings of the server.
In another preferred embodiment, the hard disk of the server is partitioned with a float (or empty) partition between the NOS partition and the images partition. The hard disk controller is provided software code that allows dynamic extension/expansion of the respective sizes of the NOS and/or the images partition into the logical space of the float partition whenever the size of the new application or the size of the image file of the new application exceeds the partitioned size of the NOS partition and the images partition, respectively. The variable partition topology and the determination of the needed sizes for the new application and image file are programmed into the re-provisioning utility, which messages the hard disk controller to implement the adjusting of the partition spaces. A flexible hard-drive partition topology is therefore enabled.
In one embodiment, user activation of the re-provisioning utility involves utilization of a user interface associated with the re-provisioning utility. The scripts may be provided within a GUI or as a text based interactive process. Thus, the appliance server""s application is conveniently changed by a short series of computer clicks or text-based user input.
The above, as well as additional objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.